Oh Romeo, oh Romeo, I’m glad you didn’t do it, thinking Juliet had already topped herself. With a name like Romeo is a Dead Man, it almost goes without saying SUDA51 is at it again with his strange and wonderful “WTF-isms;” things that make you ask “WTF?” and “how does he get away with this?” The eccentric director – to put it lightly – behind No More Heroes, Lollipop Chainsaw, and of course, Killer7 is joined this time by No More Heroes III co-director and game designer Ren Yamazaki.

So the plot of Romeo is a Dead Man is that Romeo Stargazer is a cop who believes “the current president” (for 2018) is controlled by a 5th-gen AI implanted by the Space-Time King. That’s until he’s killed by whatever those monsters are from Stranger Things, and Marty McFly bursts through the space-time continuum on a Tron bike to tell Romeo, with his half-missing face, that he’s about to die in a few seconds. I really wish there was any embellishment in that to make me sound more windswept and interesting, but SUDA51 is a nutter that I love. With some techno future augmentations, Romeo becomes 80s Jesus, or “DeadMan.”

Ok, a little more than the literal setup in the first few seconds, it turns out Romeo Stargazer’s Juliet is in fact something else, and after being turned into techno Jesus by his granddad Ben, Romeo becomes a Space-Time FBI Cadet. With his magical-future granddad dead and now a talking patch/narrator on his awesome hero jacket, the two go on fractured Space-Time adventures to kill the Loki variants of Juliet, including a buff Space Marine mommy variant. Really, it is a SUDA51 game, that’s just short-hand for weird plot stuff and hack-and-slash gameplay.

Yes, of course, it is a lot more than just a hack-and-slash affair with an odd story, but despite being directed by someone else who co-wrote the madness, Romeo is a Dead Man is a SUDA51 game through and through. Albeit a sci-fi take on the Billy S. tragedy we all already know. As a new recruit (or special agent) for the Space-Time police, it is your job to go “capture” or, more likely, eliminate several Space-Time fugitives due to granddad Ben’s science experiments fracturing the timeline.

Thrown into the typical arenas of hack-and-slash action of a No More Heroes vein, you have a light attack, heavy attack, dodge roll, and gun against mostly zombie-like minions. Of course, there are variations on that: Zombies with sniper rifles, spider/scorpion-type things, and tomato-headed people with a weak point to hit. i.e, fodder before the monstrous (in one case, one-hit kill) bosses. Not an unwelcome bit of action gameplay in the endless torrent of lite-RPGs with a minimum runtime of between here and the heat death of the universe.

The true Travis Touchdown of Romeo is a Dead Man is the stylization; the maximalist approach of every detail having its own flair without feeling out of place. Saving/bonfire-style resetting of enemies is an old pixelated menu akin to Ceefax, the cooking mini-game is a different style to everything else, the FBI Space-Time ship is a top-down pixel RPG-looking event with text boxes in place of voiceover, and the main gameplay is an over-the-shoulder action piece. The latter with the camera arguably a little too close, in my opinion.

I haven’t even spoken about the “cutscenes” where backstory is expositioned at you via the medium of a camera panning over an animated comic book. Or the hundreds of particle effects on every melee attack you make to basic enemies. Romeo is a Dead Man is wild and chaotic, but familiar in a nostalgic way. Back when games could be, as SUDA described his philosophy, “Punk,” or indeed like the jazz of those subspace sections finding certain keys, the opposite of the main menu’s Japanese hip-hop soundtrack.

Romeo is a Dead Man is a reminder of games – like Killer is Dead, Killer7, and No More Heroes – where you jump in head-first. It is mad, it is chaotic, and it is over in enough time for your alarm to go off on Monday for work. From cultivating Bastards (ally summons) to solving where to go next, it is a reminder that games aren’t made like this anymore. Or if they are, they are polished and focus-grouped to be as accessible (not in a disability way) to as many people as possible.

Some aren’t going to like Romeo is a Dead Man’s flashes of insanity and Grasshopper Manufacture’s penchant for style over substance and polish, but the cult following of Killer7 (most likely) will, as I already do. Not that Romeo is a Dead Man is perfection itself. For all that mad-cap offshoots of gameplay, including those Tron-like grid-based puzzle world dungeons searching for keys or cooking mini-games presented like a prestige cooking show, not all of it will feel fully realized. Each piece of the puzzle doesn’t make sense alone, as it were, but together it makes Romeo is a Dead Man a weird game that never quite settles.

The plot isn’t something to think too much about as you try to track down civil war veterans out of time or fight the headless abomination that used to be a variant of your girlfriend. Not that it is bad either, Romeo and Juliet’s romance through Space-Time action has a few punches in Suda’s typical crude ways. However, expecting literal Shakespeare might be a stretch too far. The true story of Romeo is a Dead Man is told through the gameplay and how simple or “repetitive” it actually is, but it is broken up by the surrounding madness, all the same.

What is also broken up by the surroundings, so to speak, is the performance, with certain things (prior to launch) dropping the frame rate to a “cinematic” (that’s sarcasm™) 24-26 frames per second. At least that’s the case on ultra. As usual, meeting or exceeding the recommended specs, I’ve seen the odd dip on medium in place of watching all the neon sparks and flashes of particle effects coating the screen in ultra, and I can’t say it is desperately needing those few extra pixels to realize the vague arenas you’ll fight in.

I said only a minute ago, “style over substance and polish,” and that’s true. Yet, not of the locations you’ll visit to track down the anomalies for the Space-Time cops. Style comes in how the story is presented, the gameplay changes to induce whiplash, and for Romeo himself, but the almost My First Dead Rising malls, forests, and Indiana Jones’ Nazi punching playgrounds don’t necessarily stand out. Nevertheless, they still don’t feel like they should impact performance, given their late 2000s Dynasty Warriors levels of emptiness/hollowness.

For the first time in a couple of years, it feels like, matched with Yamazaki and whatever substances allow SUDA51 to come up with these ideas, that SUDA51 and GRASSHOPPER MANUFACTURE have found themselves again. Ultimately, some aren’t going to like Romeo is a Dead Man, but I love how weird and downright insane you have to be to enjoy it. Romeo is a Dead Man feels like how games used to be made – with risk, with style, with a sense of “I am making this for me,” and I can’t help but love that. Though I would like to be further away from Romeo’s farts.

A PC review copy of Romeo is a Dead Man was provided by GRASSHOPPER MANUFACTURE INC. for this review.

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Romeo is a Dead Man

$49.99

8.5

Score

8.5/10

Pros

• I have what Suda is having. Drugs, I assume.
• Nothing but pure style.
• Bloody Summer!

Cons

• Performance on higher settings isn't exactly great.
• Can I get the camera just a little bit further back and higher?